“Who is thought to be the first American
architect to use the term “Collegiate
Gothic”?

ANSWER:

“Alexander
Jackson Davis was perhaps the first American
architect to use
the term “Collegiate Gothic”, by
which he seems to have meant the late medieval
styles found at the English universities. But
he used the term loosely to include various styles
and building types, as indicated by a reference
in his office diary to a building in a “Collegiate
Gothic Villa Style.” In his designs for
colleges, Davis was less concerned with the niceties
of historical styles than with creating standard
types of plans appropriate to the functions of
specific kinds of institutions.” Davis’s
influences may have sparked the decisions that
brought this
architecture to Mount Holyoke College (20).